ARBOR TO BECOME A MORROW IMPRINT

By EDWIN McDOWELL

Published: June 3, 1987

Arbor House, a publishing house that tried for several years to survive as an independent company, lost the struggle yesterday when it was announced that it would become an imprint of William Morrow & Company.

The move, effective next January, was announced by the Hearst Corporation, which owns Arbor and Morrow.

Alan D. Williams, the executive editor of G. P. Putnam's, will join Morrow later this month as a vice president and will eventually become publisher and editor in chief of the Arbor House imprint.

Eden Collinsworth, who has headed Arbor House since 1983, resigned as president and publisher yesterday. She will continue as part of the Hearst Books/Business Publishing Group.

The Arbor move was not unexpected, particularly since the company announced in January that it was cutting its list from 70 books a year to about 40. Even before that, however, industry officials speculated that it would likely be incorporated within Morrow, with whom it shared only a sales force, unless it managed to publish a succession of best sellers that could justify its separate status. Recent Best Sellers

Arbor failed to do so, although it had several recent best sellers, including ''Bandits'' by Elmore Leonard and ''The Mayflower Madam'' by Sydney Biddle Barrows with William Novak.

''Arbor will continue to publish about 40 books a year,'' said Lawrence Hughes, president of the Hearst Trade Book Group, which also includes Avon Books, the paperback house, Hearst Books and Hearst Marine Books. ''But it just didn't make economic sense to continue two companies.'' He added that Arbor employees would become Morrow employees, and that no reductions in staff were contemplated.

Arbor House was founded by Donald Fine in 1969 and acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 1978. Three years later Hearst acquired Morrow.